Home again and it's raining

Metal Magic Festival was awesome as expected.  No doubt about that!  Great bands and cool people. Dark Quarterer did an amazing gig,  pure magic!  Then Desolation Angels,  Ear Danger, Paragon, Portrait and som more was really good too! And it's sooo good to hang out in the sun, with nice people, drinking cheap beer and just enjoy a weekend of Metal.

The good thing about Festivals like Metal Magic is that band merch is cheap!  So we sure did some shopping.   One supercool vinyl edition of Danish cult band Metal Cross,  booklet,  7" and more... Also, Desolation Angels had an 80's 7" with them,  Valhalla for a bargain price!

Another really cool buy was the first Dark Quarterer album on original vinyl. The even cooler thing was that Gianno and Paulo signed it, even got kind of an artwork together with the signature also. 

One more week of work now before VACATION!!!!

Cheers 

E 

Festival time

Yes,  vacation is coming closer but I still have another week to work and it will be a tough one. So many things dragning, especially dokumentation,  but it's hard to do anything good with only one hour here and there which isn't booked for meetings.

Anyway, these last few weeks I've been catching up with METAL KAOZ things. Picture edition, reviewing records (THRASHBACK, TEMTRIS, VADER...) goodies. At the same time sweating my ass off in the shoebox flat but I'm glad raining has stopped at least!

Tomorrow we're off to METAL MAGIC! Gonna be awesome!!!

Cheers
E

Almost a tour now...

Yep, VOID MOON will play DOOM OVER SCANIA next year too. And since last festival was a blast, so many good shows including SORCERER,  MORTALICUM, STONE GRIFF,  HANDS OF ORLAC... And then looking at the new billig. It will be Great again!
But first we have DUTCH DOOM DAYS and we are working to confirm more gigs.

Cheers
E

NP: ACCEPT - BALLS TO THE WALL

Some about nothin'

Well, feels good that it is Friday.  This means Metal Magic Festival is less than a week away! Looking forward to see Dark Quarterer, Desolation Angels, Hurlement, Protector and many more...

Cheers E

Festival Season 2014 starts...

Yep... Keep It True which is the first one is just two weeks something away now. I'm really looking forward to this Festival. As always, a lot of great bands and I'm sure I will meet up with old friends and get some new ones too! Again, as it always is! Another thing that really equals KIT is a Schnitzel in our Hotel Restaurant, Goldener Stern in Lauda. Gerhard and his staff serves great food with homegrown vegetables. Last year, I think it was, Gerhard and his regular visitors tried to sing a song for me, "A little flower called Erika". Hysteric! Fun and a bit embarrassing!!! It's going to be really cool to see HEXX, found them back in 1988 and the records still kicks ass. LETHAL too of course. TOXIC, JAG PANZER and METAL CHURCH... And, and, and...

We'll miss Heavy Days in Doomtown this year unfortunately. Nice event even if the line-up doesn't always fit my taste. But I've also seen some really cool bands on that Festival, bands I never expected to like prior to the show. Like PROFETUS. Maybe next year.

Muskelrock has become a tradition. Especially since I realized it's possible to stay at Hotel Rådmannen and skip camping, else I doubt I would gone back year after year. Even if it is a very nice Festival, similar atmosphere to KIT and always a great line-up, but if I have to be camping in the end of May in Sweden the line-up needs to be a killer. Not necessary now though! I'm really looking forward to see Uli Jon Roth, SATAN, PROTECTOR, ANGEL WITCH and a few more...

 
Then the big ones starts, Copenhell Festival. Even though it is big it's a very nice Festival. Nice atmosphere and killer bands. What's so cool with Copenhell is everything around that's arranged as well. Normally they have a Film Festival showing independent as well as classic films, last year they had a burning (smoking at least) church and open coffins in the center field!!!!

Metal Magic is the next one up! Even if the temperature allows camping I really enjoy the Festival where I can stay in a Hotel. So it is with Metal Magic, always great line-up, great people and very well arranged! And always a lot of cool bands, DARK QUARTERER, PORTRAIT, HÜRLEMENT, PARAGON and a few more will be great fun.

I'm not sure exactly how many Festivals it will be during the summer, not more than the ones already mentioned... But one of the highlights is absolutely Headbangers Open Air. The only Festival I don't mind camping for. Normally warm and nice and possible to build a camp, set up BBQ etc. That I like. This together with great people and awesome bands sure makes it a good vacation. WARLORD, DEATH ANGEL, RIOT, WHIPLASH, GRAND MAGUS, TYGERS OF PAN TANG, CAGE will be awesome and I assume the rest will be great as always!

Then what? Sure, I can't be out traveling all summer, need to spend some time at home too, to rest a bit. But when bands come to town it's hard to resist. I really want to see VICIOUS RUMORS too, they're coming over to Europe for a few gigs and I think I need to catch at least one. KING DIAMOND is playing in Berlin a few days after HOA, that could make a great end to the vacation!!! Busy busy!!!

And then the plan for fall!!! I'm not sure how I will have time to work anymore, and it sure will be a hell lot of travel with work as well!!! Exiting days.

Cheers
E

NP: MSG - Michael Schenker Group

 

Recordshoppers Anonymous #17

Well, if following the trend in the earlier posts regarding records I supposed this should have been #32 rather than #17... But I haven't found the time to write very much lately! But I've had the time to shop for records. Me and Peter have about 80-90cm's pile worth of new LP's, apart from the BIG box arriving from TPL records last Friday. Peter checked out 5,5kg records!
It sure is for good and bad to have a personal shopper when it comes to records. The convenient thing is that I just send my wants to Patrik and about every 6 weeks it's time for a new package. With this I don't have to order from Nuclear Blast, High Roller, Pure Steel, Underground Power and more every month.
So now that only happens on occasion, but there are packages coming in every now and then. And of course, start digging into Discogs and eBay for real, so much irresistible for sale there.  

The first must have for the collection was the boxed set of the digi re-issues of all Savatage records. Sure, I had them all already but as this one was a full box I had to have it too.

 

But getting it and have a chance to look at it for real it was kind of a disappointment. It really is a shame that the company didn't put more effort into it. The box itself has quite poor quality but... See the logo???

Yep, it must have had to do with the fat version of Streets - Narrated... Half the T in the logo is gone, they just excluded Japan Live -94 from the box, it looks like shit! And there's not enough room to squeeze in one more into the box either. Such a good thing done in a cheap way, it really sucks.

Then the next must have was the vinyl release of "Maniacal Renderings", regular black vinyl and Clear vinyl limited edition. Still very small editions of both so I think both should be listed as limited. Then I also found a bootleg version of Ghost in the Ruins on vinyl. It looks kind of cheap but I assume it will  be as expensive as "Dead Winter Dead" or "Handful of Rain" which also is bootleg releases. 

The fun thing (or bad perhaps) with Discogs is that it is very easy to find versions of records, completely crazy to get something I already have just because it's a different print but that's what collection is all about. So the collections are now enhanced with some Russian and Brazil prints of a few albums...

Then what? Yeah, the big box... Both vinyls and CD's in it of course. Some new, some old and some re-issues. It's crazy how much music that is released these days. But it held some real highlights, Iced Earth, Grand Magus, Sahg, Blaze Bayley, Satan's Host...
Ok, it wasn't just the big box that had arrived when I came home this Friday, some from eBay too...

I really know what to do this weekend as you see! Gonna be a lot of Metal, that's for sure.

 
Also, included was a very nice version of Iced Earth's (apart from the regular vinyl) new "Plagues of Babylon", 3x10" in a box. Big and nice booklet and a poster. Me like!!!

 
It sure is a good thing we bought a big house! It would have been a shame if it would have been filled to the limit now already! :O)

Well, dinner time!
Meet & Beer on the menu tonight, that'll be nice!

Cheers
E

NP: Satans Host - Virgin Sails

 
 
 

 

But life goes on

I really want summer now!!! Everything feels so gloomy and dark right now, for several reason. But the weather, it's depressing. Let the snow stay or come summer!
The good thing with winter, and travel is that I get time and peace to read. Sure, the books get old before I get my butt around to pick them up but that's the good thing with books, especially band bio's and such, they keep actual regardless if they're laying around for years before I pick them up or not.

Most recent book was Blod, Eld, Död (Blood Fire Death) a Swedish Metal History. Very interesting I'd say, cool views in many aspects of Development of Brutal music in my dark corners of the world. The difference between this book and the ones I've mainly been reading is that I've lived through the development of Death Metal and Black Metal, tape trading, fanzines and so. Nostalgic for sure. And very interesting reading. 

A full review will be up on Metal Kaoz in a while!

And since I was in the middle of a travel when finishing the book, I had to get something more to read. I was looking in the pocketshop at first but decided to go for the latest issue of Terrorizer instead. Not very surprising choice, but the fun thing was on the plane, the man next to me looked VERY surprised when he saw the title of the book. Finishing that one and picking up Terrorizer instead, well, he moved towards the guy sitting next to him on the other side instead... 

So back home I needed to choose a new book to read, I've bought a lot lately and are not reading in the same pace as I buy them! So I better at least keep a steady pace.
My choice this time was Kiss - En osminkad historia (an unmasked history), by Sweden Rock Mag Carl Linnaeus. I've just gotten through the first 1½ chapter yet but it sure seems promising, good language this far at least!

Both books are in Swedish though, have no clue if they're available in any other language yet... 
But while I'm at it, one more book well worth reading, despite if you like the band or not is The Legend of Hammerfall, amusing, well-written and to the level of detail you really want to have in a band Bio... Also just in Swedish though.

Next up should be Iced Earth concerts in Copenhagen and Gothenburg... I'm really looking forward to some Metal Gigs now... I can't start playing with my new camera yet though, seems like the Camera Raw isn't compatible with PSE7, need PSE10 at least... And I suppose PSE10 won't support Raw-files from my old camera, my computers SURELY can't take both versions of PSE so I assume I need a new computer too! Anyone who has any experience here and can help out? What do I need to support one Canon EOS 50D and one Canon EOS 5D MkIII? Gonna be good when everything is in place though.

Cheers
E

NP: ICED EARTH - Plagues of Babylon